A man who was bitten by a shark while surfing off the Northern California coast said the great white came “out of nowhere.”

Jay Scrivner, 45, of Eureka, told the Associated Press in a phone interview from his hospital bed that the nearly 10-foot shark bit his thigh and his board Sunday as he surfed near Humboldt Bay.

He told the news service on Monday that he was lying on his board, paddling in a familiar spot when he was bitten.

Scrivner said that “out of nowhere” he saw the shark’s teeth and nose. After he was bitten, he took a swing at the great white and let out what a friend nearby described as a primordial yell, the AP reported.